you know what it's a speech

I’ve not really thought about the origins of why I’m doing what I’m doing because it all felt so obvious. It’s how I’d now tell anyone to build something. Have an idea and just start doing things. But you have to really believe the idea, there has to be some kind of roots that were grown in you. That’s the part I never considered. Until just now. I was reading a book proposal of someone I’m working with about World Building. I’ve never read a business book, but I don’t imagine I could align with a way of doing things more than this framework. You’ll have to wait for her book, but I’ll paraphrase a few of the things that stuck with me.

The core of your business comes from the core of you and there needs to be a gravitational pull. It’s not one you can brainstorm in an afternoon workshop or spitball ideas for until one fits. It’s something innate and built over time. But without this good branding colours and powerful sales copy won’t mean a thing. I have always prioritised substance over style. Just look at the state of me on any given week day. And yeh I’ve been in a few places and felt a little scruffy or silly about my shoes or bum bag instead of handbag, but on the whole I’ve not doubted that I could have a compelling conversation with anyone in there. I don’t doubt that.

In World Building the idea may come from an obsession or a complaint. I didn’t think I had either but then I dug a bit deeper. In the years prior to doing what I do now I was wholly focused on writing a book and getting into the world through traditional means. That was my north star, my guiding light, my plan a b and c. But it didn’t work out, it wasn’t an overnight thing, it was a prolonged period of rejection and brick walls and eventually bad taste (in my mouth). And I maintained this level of delusional self belief but I also got quite neggy about everything. I felt like a personal victim of the publishing industry, I complained about how impossibly impossible it was, and I got a bit what’s the fucking point about everything.

And it wasn’t like I just decided one day to turn that frown upsidedown, but something came from it. I did it because I hated the way I had been feeling. I have always been a fuck the theatre! I hate rules! Hierarchy can go to hell kind of quitter and this natural rebellion in me wanted to push against a system I was excluded from. I’ve written before how gate kept being a writer is, and the shame and, oh silly little me and my silly little blogs I’ve always felt in relation to it. And the attempts I had to get representation and get a book deal were motivated by someone saying HAHA Annie’s well read ex-boyfriend she is a real writer after all!! (And other versions of that, insert other names and the feeling was the same).

What I suppose I didn’t realise until I’m writing it now is that I created something that I wanted to feel like the opposite. Yes you over there, I believe you have something interesting to say. And yeah I think you have a voice and if you keep writing it will get clearer and if you really stick at it you might really start to speak to other people too and that might really really be worth it.

I wanted to make a place that was a soft landing and an open door that curiosity alone is enough to grant you entry. There is nothing more alienating to me than the higher education system I came from. And like, I had a pretty gentle go of it. There was no academic pressure or expectation of good grades or serious professors lording over me. But there was something that didn’t feel right. So much so that I spent most of my time at the deli making sandwiches, washing up and burning coffee instead. I truly genuinely believe and still feel I learnt much more there than at my place of education. I didn’t want to read big books I didn’t understand and quote them in my essays. I didn’t manage to take in a word of academic theory and I certainly could not recount any of that to you now. But I did manage to write a really good dissertation and had a full time job at a magazine before the end of my degree. KNOW WHAT I’M SAYING. I was clever in other ways guys, I had ideas, I had the ability to make links, I had ZEST.

Later I’d feel inferior because of not going to a red brick or not KNOWING stuff and yet I still wanted to write. I had stuff to say all the time. Even about things I didn’t really understand, like bear with me but I published a think piece about Brexit the day it happened. And babe, no one asked for it! And if you made me read it now I’d try to get to a bridge to jump off. But I had this urgency, always, to use my voice. Eventually I settled on impassioned essays about public hair and women’s bodies in the media, but it was there, the beating heart of what I still do/believe.

The single biggest reason that drives me now is this. Use your voice. That is where you’ll find freedom.